Las Vegas Shooting: At a Loss on Motive, F.B.I. Turns to Billboards for Leads

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A memorial to the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.CreditRobyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By The New York Times

Oct. 6, 2017

LAS VEGAS — Still unable to identify a motive five days after the massacre of 58 concertgoers, local and federal officials sounded increasingly desperate for leads on Friday, announcing plans to erect billboards with the message, “If you know something, say something.”

“There are still a number of people out there that know that something looked out of place,” said Undersheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “Someone may have been acting suspiciously that night, or in the years prior, the months prior. Someone that may have seen something or knows something.”

Aaron Rouse, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. office in Las Vegas, said billboards would be set up around Las Vegas area, to “reach as many people as we possibly can,” seeking tips about the gunman. “We have not stopped, we will not stop, until we have the truth.”

• Though the gunman, Stephen Paddock, had explosives and chemicals that can be used in bomb-making in his car, “it did not resemble an I.E.D.,” or improvised explosive device, Undersheriff McMahill said. Later, speaking on CNN, he clarified, “I believe he certainly had nefarious intent with that material,” but he did not know what that intent was.

• The possibility that Mr. Paddock, 64, who had no evidence prior criminal history, was suffering from mental illness “is another aspect of the investigation we’re keenly interested in, and we continue to investigate that,” Undersheriff McMahill said.

• The F.B.I. is searching electronic devices and financial statements belonging to the gunman. Investigators have not found a manifesto or signs that he held extremist views.

• The coroner’s office in Las Vegas completed the task of identifying the 36 women and 22 men, ranging in age from 20 to 67, who were fatally shot at a country music festival, and made their names public on Thursday night. They were teachers, police officers, secretaries, retirees, from across the United States; these are their stories.

• A note the gunman left on a table inside his suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino had numbers written on it, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in an interview. He said the authorities were trying to determine what the numbers meant, but the sheriff said the document was not a suicide note.

• Mr. Paddock may have scouted other locations before targeting Las Vegas, including Fenway Park in Boston, the Lollapalooza show in Chicago and the Life Is Beautiful music festival in Las Vegas.

The search continues for motives and possible accomplices.

Undersheriff McMahill said on Friday, “we have no credible information to report to you, as to motivation.”

“We have looked at everything, literally, to include the suspect’s personal life, any political affiliation, his social behaviors, the economic situation, and any potential radicalization that so many have claimed,” he said. “We’re also aware, of course, that ISIS has repeatedly claimed responsibility, which today I can tell you that we have no known nexus to.”

As for whether Mr. Paddock had any help, the undersheriff said investigators were “very confident” there was not another gunman in the room but that they still could not rule out that someone else knew of the attack.

“There’s voluminous amounts of video from many different locations” in the hotel, he said. “We have reviewed it, and we have not located any other person that we believe to be a suspect at this point.”

The F.B.I. took Mr. Paddock’s computers and cellphones to its laboratory in Quantico, Va., for review, law enforcement officials said. Agents interviewed his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, in an attempt to determine his mental state at the time of the shooting, but Sheriff Lombardo said he was “not at liberty to say” what information had been learned.

Of course, investigators could at any time come across evidence that reveals Mr. Paddock’s thinking, Sheriff Lombardo said on Thursday. “I’m pretty confident we’ll get there,” he said.

The signs of chaos are cleared from the concert site.

The cleanup of the concert area that became the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history was nearly complete on Friday.

The back half of the football-field-size viewing area had been littered all week with lawn chairs and other debris left behind in the pandemonium of the attack that killed 58 people. Workers on Friday morning stacked the chairs in neat rows and picked up the garbage scattered across the artificial turf.

Through most of the week, the crime scene had been left untouched. Investigators strolled through it in small groups occasionally, but not continuously. They worked during daylight, and the area has been left dark at night.

Most of the cars that filled an adjacent parking lot on Monday morning have been claimed, and only a few remained on Friday morning. Among them, though, were two large truck trailers, side by side. The one closest to the stage still serves as a billboard for Jason Aldean, the country star who was performing at the time of the shootings. It has his picture and name, the full size of a truck.

The N.R.A. calls for greater regulation of rapid-fire devices.

The National Rifle Association on Thursday endorsed tighter restrictions on bump stocks, devices that can turn a gun into a rapid-fire weapon, but did not say they should be outlawed.

In a statement on Thursday, the N.R.A. said the federal authorities should “immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law.”

“The N.R.A. believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the group said.

Last year, the N.R.A.’s online magazine, America’s First Freedom, called one of the rapid-fire devices “sublime,” and it advised users to keep copies of the firearms bureau’s ruling that such items are legal.

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From single shots to automatic rifles and "bump stocks," here's how different types of firearms and their accessories work.Published OnOct. 5, 2017

On Capitol Hill, support appeared to grow for a ban on the bump-stock devices, either through regulation or legislation, as Republicans — who for decades have rejected any form of gun restrictions — began increasingly to speak out. Several leading Republicans, including Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, have raised questions about the devices.

And in Las Vegas, a gun show scheduled for this weekend at the Eastside Cannery Casino Hotel has been canceled.

“This was a mutual decision with the show’s organizers,” said David Strow, a spokesman for the Boyd Gaming Corporation, which owns the casino. “Given recent events, this seemed the prudent thing to do.”

A murdered officer who was a joker and a father.

Hundreds of people took part in a candlelight memorial on Thursday night for Charleston Hartfield, the Las Vegas police officer who was one of the 58 people killed in the massacre on Sunday, remembering him as a big-hearted colleague, husband and father, always quick with a joke.

An Army veteran who spent 11 years on the police force, Officer Hartfield, 34, also worked as a youth counselor and football coach. In speeches at Police Memorial park in northwest Las Vegas, friends and fellow officers recalled calling him Charlie, Coach Chucky or even, occasionally, “Captain America.”

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Charleston Hartfield.

“I know that none of us here really planned on saying goodbye to Charlie so soon, but I’m glad we get to send him off in our way, not somebody else’s way,” said Steve Grammas, the president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association.

Many of the people who paid tribute to Officer Hartfield recalled his sharp sense of humor, how he was always ready with a comeback. One officer recalled wearing a kilt to a recent game of Risk, the world-domination board game.

“Charlie looked at me and he says, ‘No way I’m going to let a ginger wearing a skirt take over the world,’” the officer said.

A formal procession took Officer Hartfield’s coffin, draped in an American flag, to the Palm Downtown Mortuary and Cemetery, followed by the candlelight vigil, accompanied by bagpipers. His wife, Veronica; their daughter, Savannah; and their son, Ayzayah, wearing a black T-shirt printed with the words “Family first,” joined by officers and friends.

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A memorial service on Thursday for Charleston Hartfield, an off-duty Las Vegas police officer killed in the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.CreditChris Wattie/Reuters

The money the gunman sent to the Philippines would not have raised flags, officials say.

Investigators are looking into a large sum of money Mr. Paddock transferred to Ms. Danley in the Philippines shortly before the attack.

Ms. Danley, who was born in the Philippines, said in a statement Wednesday that Mr. Paddock wired her the money so that she could buy a house for herself and her family. She said she feared it meant he was breaking up with her. Some media reports have put the amount of the transfer at $100,000.

Officials at the Philippines Anti-Money Laundering Council and the National Bureau of Investigation declined to comment on whether they were looking into the transaction.

Other Philippine officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject, said that any overseas transfer of more than $10,000 was supposed to be flagged for review but that few were actually examined.

The volume of money transfers is so great, they said, that only questionable transactions or those involved in a crime are investigated. Even a transfer of $100,000 would not raise have raised any eyebrows, said a former United States law enforcement official who has worked in the Philippines. About 10 million Philippines citizens live overseas and send home more than $2 billion a month, according to government figures.

Mr. Paddock, took two trips to Manila in April of 2013 and 2014, said Antonette Mangrobang, a spokeswoman for the Philippine Bureau of Immigration. Both trips coincided with his birthday on April 9 and each lasted less than a week.

Reporting was contributed by John Branch; Jennifer Medina and Mitch Smith from Las Vegas; Richard C. Paddock from Manila; Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington; and Richard Pérez-Peña, Christopher Mele and Jonah Engel Bromwich from New York.